Language of Desire: A Methodological Contribution to Overcoming Gender Violence (original) (raw)
Related papers
Researching Girls and Violence. Facing the Dilemmas of Fieldwork
British Journal of Criminology, 2001
This paper explores key methodological and analytical issues encountered in an exploratory study of teenage girls' views and experiences of violence, carried out in Scotland. 1 Researching the ways in which girls conceptualise, experience and use violence raises a number of dilemmas due in part to the sensitive nature of the research topic, and the age and gender of those taking part. Drawing on feminist debates about objectivity, the role of the researcher, power relationships in the production of knowledge, and representation, this article highlights the difficulties of adapting such principles to the day-to-day practicalities of conducting empirical research on girls and violence. It shows how the research itself has been enhanced by having to engage with and work through this complexity.
Power, Social Change, and the Process of Feminist Research
Psychology of Women Quarterly, 1999
The dismantling of a male-dominated "power-over" social structure and its manifestations in human activities and relationships lies at the center of feminist thought. For many feminist psychologists, this has meant challenging the privileged, allknowing, objective position of the researcher; viewing the "naive subject" of study as a participant in the process of creating knowledge; and using research methods aimed at transforming an oppressive culture (Burman, 1992; Crawford & Marecek, 1989; Hollway, 1989). These goals are at the center of the Community Education Team's (this issue) article: "Fostering Kelationality When Implementing and Evaluating a Collective-Drama Approach to Preventing Violence Against Women." The authors use the concept of relationality to describe the process of developing interdependence and an "egalitarian, democratic research relationship" among those involved in the study. Although "sharing power" is a goal of feminist research and pedagogy, detailed accounts of the process of incorporating feminist ideas regarding power relations in U.S. psychological research are rare. The Community Education Team reminds us that those ideas most central to feminist thoughtpower, process, and social change-are often the very ideas that still elude U.S. feminist psychological research. SOCIAL CHANGE: TRADITION AND INNOVATION I applaud violence-prevention research that expands its focus from changing individuals to changing systems that promote violence against women. Fifty years ago Kurt Lewin (1948), the "practical theorist" first introduced the idea of actionresearch. I wish to thank Stacey Schlau and Ellen Wert for their helpful feedback o n this commentary.
Global Education Review, 2020
Many challenges exist to conducting participatory research and consultation with young people, especially with those considered vulnerable or at risk. Beyond respecting the safety and wellbeing of young research participants, researchers must be aware of barriers to youth engagement and be attuned to the many forms of youth resistance. As young people are seeking more control over their lives, traditional knowledge hierarchies between adults and youth are shifting. In July 2018, an event entitled Circles Within Circles brought together Indigenous and non-Indigenous girls and young women from South Africa, Canada, Russia, Sweden, and Kenya to learn from each other's participatory art-making and create a network for challenging gender-based violence (GBV). This article provides insight into the often-invisible experience of the "supporting cast" in events like Circles Within Circles. The co-authors are doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who contributed to organization and acted as facilitators, notetakers, and participants. The co-authors conduct participatory analyses of journal entries they wrote throughout the event, and jointly reflect on the activities and their feelings about their roles. Reflecting, for example, on gut feelings about young participants' use of voice and silence during adult-led activities, the co-authors discuss their reading of girls' demonstrations of resistance. This embodied knowledge, further cultivated by attuning to shared experience, is explored in this collaborative auto-ethnography. Examining the complexities of this cross-cultural and intergenerational event, the co-authors contend that when supporting girls and young people subverting dominant narratives of GBV, researchers' embodied reflexivity is crucial for positively contributing to girl-led change.
Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 2017
Researchers in many fields, especially those engaged in the study of gender-based violence, have shown an interest in using mixed designs as innovative methodological procedures to transform social realities. In this article, we introduce the ''communicative evaluation of social impact'' as a methodological tool to reveal the social impact achieved by a multiphase mixed methods design conducted sequentially on gender-based violence in Spanish universities. This tool shows the transformative power of mixed methods with a communicative orientation to generate new legislation, create proper conditions for reporting abuse, and establish new solidarity dynamics with and among the victims to promote violence-free universities. Keywords mixed methods, communicative evaluation of social impact, gender-based violence Gender-based violence is a global public concern. The 2013 United Nations Women's Conference focused on eliminating and preventing all forms of violence against women and girls as part of its efforts to agree on a strategy to overcome all types of discrimination and violence against women of different ages, contexts, and economic and social backgrounds (United Nations, 2013). Gender discrimination is a historical fact that must be addressed in all kinds of institutions across the globe, including universities (Reda & Hamdan, 2015). Violence is particularly prevalent in institutions where hierarchical power relations remain predominant (Connell, 1987). As an institution built on power relations, the academy is a prime environment
Gender, abject violence and qualitative research
This workshop has asked us to reflect critically on our research practice. I am mindful that invitation to self-reflexive research was a qualified one and that the purpose of researcher self-reflection should always be to enhance and not overshadow our engagement with the field of study. So this paper will tease out some questions that arise for me in my research practice with the aim of improving it.
Reflect on Critical Community Engaged Scholarship and Gender Based Violence
2019
This article reflects on the challenges and opportunities associated with community engaged learning at the graduate level, and challenges higher education to do more to support the teaching–research–service nexus. The community university partnership involved a graduate student class, a faculty member, and a community member from a provincial not for profit association. We examined our principled and collaborative process of critical community engaged scholarship geared toward addressing violence against women, and more specifically, femicide. Our research resulted in knowledge mobilization tools that could be used to inform various audiences (e.g., women’s shelter staff, the public, government, and journalists) about how mainstream media sources report and portray the issue of femicide. Our work had an explicit social justice focus with aims to generate a better understanding of the structural causes of violence against women and historically-created gendered hierarchy and its ong...
How violence against women and children is represented in research
2021
This policy brief presents findings from an analysis of how violence against women and children in South Africa was represented in 57 research papers. The analysis complements the work of the Violence Prevention Forum and considers the implications of that framing for policy and practice. Recommendations are made for the research community and funders of research including the need for terminology that enables inclusion.